Acts 1:5-23

⁵John baptized people in water because they said that they wanted to change their lives, but after a few days LIT God will put the Holy Spirit within you(pl) to truly change your lives.”

⁶One day when the apostles met together with Jesus, they asked him, “Lord, will you (sg) now become the King MET over us Israelite people like King David, who ruled long ago?” (OR, “Lord, will you (sg) now defeat the Romans and restore the kingdom to us Israelite people?”)

⁷He replied to them, “You do not need to know the time periods and days when that will happen. My Father alone has decided when he will make me king.

⁸But you do need to know that the Holy Spirit will make you spiritually strong when he comes to live in you. Then you will powerfully tell people about me in Jerusalem and in all the other places in Judea district, in Samaria district, and in places far away all over IDM the world.”

⁹After he said that, he was taken { God took him} up to heaven, while they were watching. He went up into a cloud PRS, which prevented them from seeing him anymore.

¹⁰While the apostles were still staring towards the sky as he was going up, suddenly two men who were wearing white clothes stood beside them. They were angels.

¹¹One of them said, “You men from Galilee district, ◄you do not need to stand here any longer looking up at the sky!/why do you still stand here looking up at the sky?► RHQ Some day this same Jesus, whom God took from you up to heaven, will come back to earth. He will return in the same manner as you just now saw him when he went up to heaven, but he will not return now.”

¹²Then after the two angels left, the apostles returned to Jerusalem from Olive Tree Hill, which was about ◄a half mile/one kilometer► MTY from Jerusalem.

¹³When they entered the city, they went upstairs to the room in the house where they were staying. Those who were there included Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, another James the son of Alphaeus, Simon who belonged to the group that wanted to expel the Romans, and Judas the son of another man named James.

¹⁴All these apostles agreed concerning the things about which they continually were praying together. Others who prayed with them included the women who had accompanied Jesus, Mary who was Jesus' mother, and his younger brothers.

¹⁵During those days Peter stood up among his fellow believers. There were at that place a group of about 120 of Jesus' followers. Peter said,

¹⁶“My fellow believers, there are words that King David wrote MTY in the Scriptures long ago that needed to be fulfilled {to happen as he said they would}. The Holy Spirit, who knew that Judas would be the one who would fulfill those words, told David what to write.

¹⁷Although Judas had been chosen { Jesus had chosen Judas}, along with the rest of us (exc) to serve as an apostle, Judas was the person who led to Jesus the people who seized him.”

¹⁸The Jewish leaders gave Judas money when he promised to treacherously/wickedly betray Jesus. Later Judas returned that money to them. When Judas hanged himself, his body fell down to the ground. His abdomen burst open, and all his intestines spilled out. So the Jewish leaders bought a field using that money.

¹⁹All the people who reside in Jerusalem heard about that, so they called that field in their own Aramaic language, Akeldama, which means ❛Field of Blood❜, because it was where someone bled and died.

²⁰Peter also said, “ I perceive that what happened to Judas is like what the writer of Psalms desired to happen: ‘May his house become deserted, and may there be no one to live in it.’ (OR, ‘ Judge him, Lord, so that neither he nor anyone else may live in his house!)’ And it seems that these other words that David wrote also refer to Judas: ‘Let someone else take over his work as a leader.’”

²¹“So it is necessary for us apostles to choose a man to replace Judas. He must be one who accompanied MTY us all the time when the Lord Jesus was with us.

²²That would be from the time when John the Baptizer baptized Jesus until the day when Jesus was taken {when God took Jesus} from us up to heaven. He must be one who saw Jesus alive again after he died.”

²³So the apostles and other believers suggested the names of two men who qualified. One man was Joseph, who was called {whom people called} Barsabbas (OR, Joseph Barsabbas) who also had the Roman name Justus. The other man was Matthias.